Samantha
“I FORGIVE YOU FOR GETTING me up so early,” I yelled at Gray. The plane we were on was specially designed for parachuters, Gray had told me. It rose quickly in the air and landed quickly. Every atom in my body felt enervated. I ran through the instructions. Gray and the other instructor would hold me when I jumped and then let go after my chute opened. We’d be the last ones out. Gray thought that was safer because I’d have less chance of getting tangled up in someone else’s lines.
"Ready?" he mouthed. It was too loud for me to hear him with the door open and the jet sounds mixing with the wind. I gave him two thumbs up. He made me run through the motions of pulling the chute. Gray's worry was endearing and I would’ve kissed him if not for all our paraphernalia. Jerry, the instructor, gave me the five-finger countdown. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. They each grabbed an arm and we flew out of the plane. As instructed, I spread out my arms and legs like a bird. Gray still held on to one hand but Jerry had released me, which wasn’t what had been planned but no matter.
I counted off in my head the seconds until I'd pull my chute. The wind picked me up and I felt almost weightless for a moment. All too soon Gray squeezed my hand. He motioned for me to pull my chute cord. Angling my feet downward as I’d been told, I pulled the cord and steeled my body against the jerk I'd feel when the chute would open. He’d told me that it was like someone pulling on my jacket if I was running, abrupt but not painful. Nothing. I pulled again.
Seconds ticked by and I was falling fast. Panicking, I jerked my hand free of his, ignoring his shout, and tugged frantically at my chute cord until I felt a release. But no jerk came. In my hand was just the toggle on the pull cord, which had come off. I turned to show Gray and then the wind took the cord and whipped it away.
The ground was rising fast, almost a blur through the tears that had formed. The tears from the wind, not fear, I told myself. And then, in an instant, I embraced it. So this was it. Perhaps my story was one of tragedy. Married young, widowed young, died young. I spread out my limbs again. When I fell and hit the earth, I figured the impact would be instantaneous. Death had to come to all of us.
The wind rushed by me and even with my goggles, I could feel the sting against my eyes. There was peace here. But Gray. I’d known him only for a little time. If I’d had one regret, I wished I had kissed him harder, held him longer. The sensation of regret caught me unexpectedly, invading my peace almost as if a physical reaction had occurred. Then I realized it wasn't regret that had hit me—it had been Gray. His body wrapped around mine, his arms coming up from behind me, holding me almost in a loose headlock with one arm. With the other, he must have pulled his chute cord, because it deployed immediately. He pulled his body back with it.
The ground still rose quickly, but he held me fast. The only thing that kept me from becoming part of the dirt was his strong, firm, and steady grip. I hugged his arms to me and wondered why I'd been so ready to give it all up. Sobbing, now with relief, I clung to him as we fell rapidly to earth.
The impact of the ground jolted me hard although I knew Gray had taken the brunt of it, landing on his legs first. He curled me into a ball and we rolled for several feet, tangled in chute cords and nylon until we were completely wrapped up. I ended up with my head tucked into his chest. Our legs were entwined.
His breath was harsh and wracked in my ear.
"Jesus. Jesus. Jesus Christ," he panted.
I said nothing, only clutched him closer to me. As I began to shake uncontrollably in his arms, he whispered consoling words in my ear. “It’s going to be okay. We’re safe now.” But he wasn't immune either. I felt his body shudder against mine and we just clung to each other inside the cocoon of his parachute. His gloved hands smoothed up and down my body comforting both of us at the same time.
When he pushed my goggles off with one hand, I saw that his eyes looked wet. I'm sure mine were too. Pulling me against him, we began ravishing each other. He rolled us over until my body was covered with his. We kissed to make sure each other was alive. We kissed in celebration of our survival. We kissed because deep down, the emotions that we'd been trying to deny were overwhelming us.
He and I both knew that however temporary our relationship had been before, the fall had shaken loose our barriers and we were just raw nerves and emotion. I felt his erection heavy against me. I wrapped my legs around him and we pressed up against each other. We would've ditched our clothes and just fucked each other raw underneath the parachute if Jerry hadn’t arrived and interrupted us.
"Hoolee shit," I heard him exclaim. "You two okay?"
Gray pulled away from me immediately and rested his forehead against mine, trying to gain some composure. The mood changed as I saw his emotions flip from desire to anger. He pulled loose of my embrace and untangled us quickly, although I'm not sure how. I was trussed up in enough strings and fabric to keep me immobilized for at least a month.
"Her goddamn chute didn't open, you motherfucker," Gray roared at Jerry. If it wasn’t for the chute strings surrounding us, Gray would’ve been on him, beating the tar out of him. He began struggling with the harness.
"We check those chutes daily,” Jerry protested.
"If you did, then you'd have seen it was defective, Jerry.” Gray spit out his name like he couldn’t stand the taste of it. Gray sat me up and pulled the chute off of me. I hadn't the first clue what had happened. I only knew that it should’ve released when I pulled on it. “And you shouldn’t have let go of her. This was an accelerated free fall, and we both fucking hold her until the chute deploys.”
He finally got the harness off of himself, and he turned to attack mine. He was spitting mad, but his hands were gentle as he handled me.
"What about the emergency cord?"
"Neither cord opened the chute,” Gray bit out. I wondered if his jaw would crack from the effort of not yelling at Jerry. Gray knew—somehow just knew—that if he yelled right in my face, I’d lose it. I was so close the edge of a breakdown. He pulled both cords and the chute remained stubbornly closed, an innocuous backpack-looking thing. He yanked viciously again and the emergency cord pulled away, frayed at the end. He threw the entire thing at Jerry, who stumbled back at the weight.
"You better get your house in order because the FAA will be there by the end of the day to run an inspection on your entire equipment supply." Gray jabbed his finger at the guy’s chest, his other hand fisted like he wanted to plant it in Jerry’s face. "You're gonna be grounded. You could've fucking killed her."
The adrenaline rush, the fear, the passion had all drained away and I felt weak. "Gray." He was still raging at Jerry. "Gray," I said louder. His head whipped around. His eyes were wide and his nostrils were flaring. I wanted to touch him so I could get him to calm down. Instead I said the words that I knew would penetrate his fear and disgust and anger. "I need you."
Immediately he turned away from Jerry and dropped to his knees. "Baby, I'm here. What can I do?"
I wrapped my arms around his neck and nuzzled my nose against him. "Take me home."
Part of me wanted to rage too but mostly I wanted to go home and lie with Gray in my arms and revel in the fact that I was alive, no matter the faulty equipment. I'd done something very dangerous but I'd survived. I was glad to be alive.